5. Awareness, what really?

 Considering that I am awake for roughly eighteen hours a day, an important question arises:

How much of that time am I truly aware?

There are moments when I feel alert and conscious of what I am doing. At times I experience a sense of awareness while performing a task. But what exactly is the “awareness” being referred to?

This question opens several possible perspectives.

Awareness can appear in simple forms. For example, being conscious of the task that is being performed. It can mean paying attention, staying alert, or focusing on the present moment while completing an activity.

Another perspective is slightly deeper. One may observe the activity as if it is happening through the body, senses, mind, and organs, while something within silently witnesses it.

In some moments, I may feel fully involved in the task — almost as if I am the one doing it — yet there is also a subtle recognition of how the task is unfolding and where it is leading.

For the moment, these perspectives can be considered only in the context of performing a task.

However, there is an important distinction hidden within them.

Some perspectives imply:

“I am doing the task and I am aware that I am doing it.”

Others suggest:

“The task is happening through the body, senses and mind, and I am observing it.”

If I assume that I am the body, the senses, the mind, the brain and the organs, then naturally my experience will revolve around the idea that I am the doer. The success of the task becomes my achievement, my capacity, my ability.

Gradually this strengthens a subtle sense of identity and ownership — the feeling that I am the one who accomplishes, proves, achieves and brings change. In ordinary language, this easily turns into a quiet form of ego reinforcement.

This happens because I consider myself nothing more than the combination of body, mind and senses.

Many philosophical and spiritual traditions question this assumption. They suggest that without the presence of the soul — the conscious principle — nothing truly functions.

At the same time, another argument may arise: what can the soul do in the worldly state without the body, senses and mind as instruments?

These questions can lead to endless philosophical debates.

But the present exploration is not about proving one argument over another.

The real inquiry is about the way of living.

If I observe my life carefully, three possible ways of living become visible.

First, life can continue mechanically. Actions happen through routine, habit and conditioning. Much of the time passes in semi-conscious or unconscious functioning.

Second, I can try to remain attentive in every task. I focus carefully, remain alert, and ensure that whatever I do is done with full concentration.

Third, and more subtle, I can train myself to remain a witness. Actions continue to occur through the body, senses and mind, but I remain aware that they are simply happening. Everything unfolds in the presence of “I”, while I remain aware of that presence.

The effort of spiritual practice moves toward this third state.

For an immeasurable span of time I may have ignored this possibility — or perhaps only understood it intellectually without living it. At times I may have attempted it briefly, but never cultivated it into a steady and uninterrupted awareness.

As long as this witnessing awareness remains unstable, the cycle of identification and bondage continues.

The path to liberation therefore lies in gradually stabilizing this awareness — recognizing that actions occur, experiences arise, thoughts appear, yet all of them unfold in the presence of the witnessing self.

Until such awareness becomes steady and undivided, continuous effort toward it remains necessary.